Process Editor

No Programming Required

As you place additional steps, you visually define their relationships with one another. Process steps are selected from a menu of standard steps that replace typical deployment scripts and manual processes. Serena Deployment Automation provides steps for several utility processes, such as inventory management and workflow control.

Additional process steps are provided by plug-ins, which offer integration with common deployment tools and application servers such as IBM WebSphere, Microsoft IIS, and many others. Out of the box, Serena Deployment Automation provides plug-ins for many common processes, such as downloading and uploading artifacts, and retrieving environment information. A component process is defined for a specific component, and it can have steps from more than one plug-in. A component can have more than one process defined for it, but each component requires at least one process.

Frequently used component processes can be saved as templates and applied later to new components. Component processes are executed by Serena Deployment Automation agents running on hosts. One instance of a component process is invoked for each resource mapped to a component in the target environment.

Drag-and-Drop Simple

Orchestrating a deployment is drag-and-drop simple. First, you need to create a component process using components that are the building blocks of Deployment Automation. They represent deployable items and have user-defined component processes that operate on those items, usually by deploying them. Deployable items, also called artifacts, can be files, images, databases, configuration materials, or anything else associated with a software project. Components have versions which are used to ensure that proper component instances get deployed.

A component process is a series of user-defined steps that operate on a component's artifacts. Each component has at least one process defined for it and can have several. Component processes may have only one step or may have many steps and relationships. They may also have conditional steps, or switch steps. When you initially implement Deployment Automation, you will typically use these process steps to replace existing deployment scripts and manual processes. You can choose from several default utility processes, such as inventory management and workflow control. You can also select from a list of over 80 provided plug-ins, which provide support for many common processes, such as downloading and uploading artifacts and retrieving environment information.